Number 11

Owing to the fact it hasn’t got above 2 degrees anywhere on site, today has been a shiver-fest to remind me of all that’s bad about a cold winter. I like the crisp mornings, the fact that loads of disease bearing parasites and bugs and things will die and make next summer a more English, pleasant thing (assuming we get a summer, of course), I even like the unique feeling of total warmth when your feet warm up last, but eventually get there. But it’s equally nasty to be so cold you can’t focus on the job and everything from knees to shoulders seem to work in slow motion. I haven’t been in an unheated building in these temperatures since 2000, when I was freezing over a setting out instrument for days on end in a field in Maidstone.

Which doesn’t make the prospect of putting on fewer clothes to go out for a run any sweeter.

Still, run I must, so I donned hat, gloves and thickest t-shirt and ventured onto the Hastings hills. And every step, I think I repeated the mantra “man, it’s cold. Man, it’s freezing”. It didn’t help, but I love an occasional moan.

Still, it was a reasonable run, my calves hurt a fair bit after Tuesday’s increase in distance, on the hills, with little loss of pace, but I expected that. What I didn’t expect was a family of local turds cycling up the path by the park while I was on the way down. Now, they were clearly close to being retarded, but even so, I reckon an unlit mountain bike on a path can afford to move onto the dog shit infested bit of park with more suitability than a pedestrian, and I wasn’t going to give in with my theory. So, with them 3 abreast, I continued toward them until one grudgingly squeezed in a bit. But not quite enough for me to not take his handlebar away from him and cause a little crashette. But thankfully, they were so idiotic, they couldn’t be bothered to do anything about either shouting abuse or gaining retribution, so I just continued my run without further incident.

Amazing.

And that’s how the run finished. Cold, painful, and returning to a cold house where i’m too nervous to turn on the heating in case the meter does odd things again and I end up with another £524 quarterly bill that I really can’t argue about. I hope British Gas see sense and accept the meter really is broken, else I really am going to be skint soon. Roll on Thursday and a new meter, that’s all I say. I can’t put any more layers on and still operate a keyboard!